Scarlet Witch has the superhuman ability to alter reality in unspecific ways. In most depictions, she is a mutant, a human born with natural superhuman powers. Originally revealed to be the daughter of the Golden Age superhero Whizzer, it was later established she and her twin brother Quicksilver were the children of X-Men villain Magneto, and the half-siblings of his daughter Polaris. This parentage was their status quo until 2014, when a further retcon revealed that she and Quicksilver were in fact non-mutants who had been kidnapped and experimented on by the High Evolutionary, and then misled to believe that Magneto was their father.[1]

The character has appeared in other Marvel-endorsed products such as animated films; arcade and video games; television series and merchandise such as action figures and trading cards. Elizabeth Olsen portrays Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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The first appearance of Scarlet Witch (center right) was on the cover of X-Men #4 (March 1964).

Scarlet Witch debuted, together with her brother, Quicksilver, as a part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in X-Men #4 (March 1964).[2] They were depicted as reluctant villains, uninterested in Magneto's ideologies. Scarlet Witch is depicted as calm and submissive, as with most female comic book characters of the time.[3] Her costume was mainly composed of a bathing suit with straps, opera gloves, short boots, a leotard covering her body, a superhero cape, and a wimple, all of which were colored in shades of red.[4] All those early X-Men characters were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.[5]

Lee also wrote the Avengers comic book, composed by the most prominent heroes of the editorial. He eventually removed all of them, save for Captain America, and replaced them with villains from other comics: the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from the X-Men, and Hawkeye from Iron Man's adventures in Tales of Suspense. The team was known as "Cap’s Kooky Quartet".[6] Although common in later years, such a change in the roster of a super hero group was completely unprecedented in its day.[7] Lee and the following Avengers writer, Roy Thomas, hinted to other Avengers being romantically interested in the Scarlet Witch. Those plots were not continued at the time, and the twins were removed from the team after a crossover with the X-Men.[8] Some years later, Thomas started a long-running romantic relation between the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, considering that it would help with their character development. He elected those characters for the relation because they were only published in the Avengers comic book, and it would not interfere with other publications.[9] The first kiss took place during the Kree–Skrull War arc. Thomas also added Hawkeye into a love triangle with both characters.[10]

Steve Englehart succeeded Thomas as writer of the Avengers. He gave her a more assertive personality, removed Quicksilver, and redefined her powers. He reasoned that "Scarlet Witch" should be more than just a superhero nom de guerre, and turned her into an apprentice of witchcraft.[9] The Vision and the Scarlet Witch got married in Giant-Size Avengers #4, and the end of the Celestial Madonna arc.[11] The couple starred a limited series of 4 issues, The Vision and the Scarlet Witch, by writer Bill Mantlo and pencillerRick Leonardi.[12] In this limited series Magneto was revealed to be the father of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Englehart returned to the characters with penciller Richard Howell in a second limited series, were the Scarlet Witch gets pregnant by magical means and delivers two sons.[13] Englehart would eventually introduce the Vision and the Scarlet Witch to the West Coast Avengers, another title he was working with. John Byrne replaced Englehart, and wrote the controversial "Vision Quest" storyline, where the Vision is dismantled and turned into an emotionless machine (thus annuling his marriage with the Scarlet Witch) and the kids are treated as an offshot of the devil and erased.[14] The website Women in Refrigerators interviewed Englehart about the change, who did not like it.[15] The West Coast Avengers title was closed, and the team was renamed as Force Works in 1994. The new title ran for only a couple of years.[16] By this time the character starred its own comic book, written by Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett, and pencilled by John Higgins, which lasted for only 4 issues.[17] The classic costume was removed, using instead a very revealing one and without the tiara. As it was poorly received, it was soon changed to a red and black one, for The Crossing.[4]

Marvel Comics was nearing bankruptcy in 1996. The Avengers and other titles were relaunched in a new continuity without mutants and outsourced to the studios of Image Comics artists. The project was named Heroes Reborn. Rob Liefeld worked with the relaunched Avengers title, and unexpectedly included the Scarlet Witch in the team. The character is not a mutant in the new continuity, only a sorcerer. Marvel renegotiated the terms of the deal, and Liefeld was replaced with writer Walter Simonson and penciller Michael Ryan. The project was a success, boosting the sales of the titles and bringing Marvel Comics out of bankruptcy.[18] The project ended after a year, and the Avengers were returned to Marvel and relaunched again, by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez. Pérez designed a new costume, with gypsy influences and abundant curly hair. The design was overly complicated; Pérez commented that he preferred it that way because it was more challenging to draw, but accepted that it can be "a lot more fun for me, a pain in the butt for other people".[19]Alan Davis stated that when he became the artist on The Avengers, he "asked to change the Scarlet Witch just because I didn't feel the design George Pérez created worked with my drawing style. I tend to go for simpler, more open lines and don't do lots of detail in rendering."[20]

Don Markstein asserts: "The Scarlet Witch is unique among superheroes, and not just because she's the only one who wears a wimple. Her super power is unlike any other—she can alter probability so as to cause mishaps for her foes. In other words, she 'hexes' them."[21]

Scarlet Witch is a regular character in Uncanny Avengers (2012), beginning with issue #1. The Axis crossover revealed that Magneto was not her father after all, doing away with a relation that has been canon for decades. It also revealed that she was not a mutant, but a common human that received powers with the experiments of the High Evolutionary. This plot twist was published when Marvel and Fox had a legal dispute over the film rights to the character, as Fox has a film license for the X-Men, mutants, and their related characters.[22]

[Matt Fraction and David Aja] managed to stay true to the character in the Avengers while also taking it in a fresh direction, so it wasn't just that same Avengers character doing solo things, which I don't think ever really works for any sustained period of time for any of those second-tier characters.[25]

Magda, the wife of Magneto, escapes from him while pregnant and takes sanctuary at Mount Wundagore in Transia, the home of the High Evolutionary. She gave birth to twins, Wanda and Pietro. The Elder GodChthon altered Wanda at birth and gave her the ability to use magic in addition to her mutant abilities, planning to use her as a vessel when her powers reached maturity. Fearing that Magnus would discover the children, Magda leaves the sanctuary and supposedly dies of exposure to the elements. The twins are attended by Bova, who soon assists the super-heroine Miss America through labor, but the birth results in a stillborn child and Miss America dies in the process. Bova tells the Whizzer (Robert Frank) that the twins are his children, but he flees because of shock from the death of his wife.[26] The High Evolutionary places them instead in the care of the Romani Django and Marya Maximoff, who raise the twins as their own, naming them Pietro and Wanda. After Django Maximoff steals bread from a neighboring town in order to feed his starving family, the townsfolk set fire to the Roma village, killing Marya. Pietro carried Wanda to safety and the two wandered Europe.[27] The events of their childhood were so traumatic that they did not remember them until well into their adult lives. After Wanda used her powers to save a child, they were chased by a mob. They were saved by Magneto, although neither of them are aware of their connection. He recruits them for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which fought against the X-Men on several occasions.[2][28] When Magneto is abducted by the cosmic entity Stranger, the Brotherhood dissolves and the twins declare that their debt to Magneto has been paid.[29]

Wanda is accidentally shot on a mission against Magneto. Quicksilver rejoins Magneto and leaves the Avengers with his wounded sister.[31] After a pair of encounters with the X-Men, the twins left Magneto, but did not rejoin the Avengers immediately. Wanda and Pietro are then kidnapped with several other mutants by the Sentinels, but are subsequently freed by the X-Men.[32][33]

Quicksilver later returns to the Avengers and advises them that Wanda has been kidnapped and taken to another dimension by the warlord Arkon.[34][35] After her rescue, both of them rejoin the team. Scarlet Witch then falls in love with android teammate the Vision. Before long, the two develop a romantic relationship.[36] Their relationship has a tumultuous start as both Quicksilver and Hawkeye object—Quicksilver cannot accept the idea that his sister loves a robot while Hawkeye loves Wanda himself.[36] Despite this, the pair eventually marry with the blessing of the entire team.[11][37]

Scarlet Witch begins to be tutored by a true witch, Agatha Harkness, which allows her even greater control over her hexes.[38] Wanda and Pietro also meet Robert Frank, who believes them to be his children.[39] This is later disproved when Wanda and Pietro are abducted by Django Maximoff and taken to Wundagore. Wanda is temporarily possessed by the demonChthon, and after defeating it is advised by Bova that neither Frank nor Maximoff is their biological father.[26][40] Soon after, while trying to track down Magda one last time, Magneto learns that he is the father of the twins. He immediately informs them of their relationship, shortly after the birth of Pietro's daughter Luna.[41] Scarlet Witch and the Vision take a leave of absence from the Avengers,[42] and she conceives the twin boys named Thomas and William. As the Vision is an android, she conceived using magic.[43] Wanda gives birth,[44] and, with the Vision, eventually leaves the East Coast to join the West Coast Avengers.[45]

Their relationship is almost ended when the Vision is dismantled, and then recreated as an emotionless android. Wonder Man, who had a crush on Scarlet Witch, refuses to allow a new recording of his brain patterns to restore the Vision's personality.[46][47] Another personal setback follows when it is revealed that Wanda's children are in fact missing shards of the soul of the demon Mephisto.[48][49] Absorbed back into Mephisto, Agatha Harkness temporarily erases Wanda's memories of her children from her mind in order to ensure that she can temporarily disrupt Mephisto's physical form.[49] It is ultimately revealed that Immortus masterminded those events, as he sought to tap into the temporal nexus energy she possessed. The Avengers ultimately rescue Wanda, who regains her memories of her children in the process.[50]

Immortus's actions leave Wanda's hex power drained and highly unreliable,[51] which was fixed by Agatha Harkness and Doctor Strange.[52] Wanda is then nominated as leader of the Avengers West Coast team.[53] When the team is dissolved,[54] Wanda leads a new one called Force Works.[55][56] The team suffers several setbacks, including the death of Wonder Man on the first mission.[57] When the team splinters after the last mission involving Kang the Conqueror,[58] Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye return to the main team.[59]

The Vision and Scarlet Witch reconcile shortly before sacrificing themselves with the other Avengers and the Fantastic Four to stop the mutant villain Onslaught.[60] Due to the intervention of Franklin Richards, Scarlet Witch and her teammates exist in a parallel universe for a year,[61] until returned to the mainstream universe.[62]

Shortly after the heroes return, Scarlet Witch is kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan le Fay, with the intention of using Wanda's powers to warp reality.[63] Wanda temporarily resurrects Wonder Man, and the Vision is damaged in the final battle with Le Fay.[64][65][66][67] Agatha Harkness tells her that she is now able to channel chaos magic, which made her more powerful. Wanda is able to fully resurrect Wonder Man, and the two become lovers.[68] The Vision is eventually repaired and—after Wonder Man breaks-up with Wanda[69]—they resume their relationship.[70] Her ability to channel chaos magic culminates when the villain Scorpio splits the cosmic entity the In-Betweener into his separate order and chaos personas and Wanda has to reassemble the entity.[71][72][73]

Variant cover to House of M #1 (June 2005),
art by Joe Quesada and Danny Miki

Wanda hears the Wasp mock her ambitions for motherhood, only to find herself missing her memories of ever having had children.[74][75] Scarlet Witch then seeks out help from Doctor Doom to see if he can restore her children to life. To do so, they summon a mysterious cosmic entity which merges with her.[76] Wanda, under the influence of the entity, launches a campaign of terror against the Avengers, blaming them for the death of her children. The Vision is destroyed, Hawkeye is killed, and Scott Lang is almost killed—but is saved by Wanda's future self, who teleports him to the future. Doctor Strange defeats Wanda, and Magneto leaves with her.[75]

Realizing that the Avengers and the X-Men are seriously contemplating killing his sister due to her unstable powers, Quicksilver convinces Scarlet Witch to use her powers to create a world where everyone has their heart's desire fulfilled.[77][78] Although the reality warp succeeds, several heroes (Hawkeye, Wolverine, and Layla Miller) regain their memories and gather Earth's heroes to stop the "House of M".[79] When Magneto discovers what Quicksilver did, he murders him. Wanda resurrects him and, enraged with her father, depowers 90% of the mutant population,[80] including Magneto and Quicksilver. She retires to Wundagore, to live a secluded normal life.[81] Both Beast and a resurrected Hawkeye met her during this time.[82][83]

Wiccan and Speed from the Young Avengers thought themselves to be reincarnations of the lost children of Scarlet Witch, and try to locate her. Magneto, Quicksilver (whose powers had been restored) and the Avengers try to locate her as well. They find her in Latveria, amnesic and engaged to Doctor Doom.[84] Iron Lad rescues the team and Wanda, teleporting them into the past, where Wanda regains her memory. When the group returns to the present, Scarlet Witch tries to commit suicide.[85] Wiccan then tells her that her father and brother are alive, and that he is her reincarnated son. She returns with Dr. Doom, seeking his help to undo the spell that erased mutant powers, but Doom manages to steal the reality-warping power for himself.[76] He becomes omnipotent, but Wanda and Wiccan steal his newfound powers.[86] She does not return to the Avengers, and stays in solitude.[87]

Scarlet Witch returns to the Avengers during the events of Avengers vs. X-Men.[88]Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman offer her a return to the Avengers. Although she is initially reluctant, she accepts and follows them to Avengers Mansion. Despite both heroines pleading her case, the Vision angrily snaps at Wanda, blaming her again for having manipulated and killed him, and telling her to leave. Ms. Marvel and Iron Man rush to Wanda's defense, the Avengers defer their decision to the Vision, who elects to stand by his point, even if obviously pained by the situation. Ms. Marvel carries away a crying Wanda.[89] When the Avengers go to extract Hope Summers from Utopia and are nearly defeated by a Phoenix Force-empowered Cyclops, Scarlet Witch arrives and saves them. Hope agrees to go with Scarlet Witch; when Cyclops tries to stop Wanda from taking Hope and touches her arm, she causes him physical harm.[90]

Though hunted by the Phoenix-powered X-Men, Wanda's return to the team provides the Avengers a much-needed boost as many teammates are captured by the X-Men. Hawkeye is severely injured rescuing Wanda from being teleported away by Magik and White Queen, the former of which sees Wanda as a monster for depowering mutantkind. Wanda's power provides the X-Men with a threat that not even the Phoenix can face down as the Avengers employ magical illusions to trick the X-Men into thinking Wanda is with the various Avengers groups. Further investigation links Wanda's powers to the Phoenix Force. When Cyclops goes Dark Phoenix,[clarification needed] Wanda and Hope Summers, who is mimicking Wanda's powers, defeat him and cause the Phoenix Force to leave him. After Hope inherits the Phoenix Force, she and Wanda combine their powers to apparently destroy the Phoenix by saying "No more Phoenix". This results in the repowering of mutants, undoing Wanda's actions on M-Day.[91]

Following the war, Captain America selects Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers Unity Squad, a new team of Avengers composed of both classic Avengers and X-Men.[92] After that, she asked her close friends Janet Van Dyne and Wonder Man to join and sponsor the new team.[93] In Uncanny Avengers #14, she meets her apparent death at the hands of her teammate Rogue, who had absorbed Wolverine's powers.[94] This death is eventually undone when the surviving Unity Squad are projected back in time, having learned that Rogue was manipulated by the Apocalypse Twins into killing Wanda, allowing the Avengers to band together and defeat an approaching Celestial.[volume & issue needed]

When the Red Skull mounts a new attack,[volume & issue needed] Wanda attempts to work with Doctor Strange to cast a spell of moral inversion to draw out the part of Xavier in the Red Skull and put him in control of the body,[95] but this spell backfires when Doctor Doom is forced to take Strange's place,[96] resulting in the moral inversion of all heroes and villains in the vicinity.[97] When Quicksilver and Magneto try to talk the inverted Wanda down, Wanda attacks them with a curse designed to punish her blood, but only Quicksilver reacts and Wanda realizes that Magneto is not their father.[98] Before she can pursue this further, Doom appears with the resurrected Brother Voodoo and the spirit of his brother Daniel, who possesses Wanda[99] so that she and Doom can undo the spell and restore the heroes' and villains' moralities to normal.[100]

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver take a trip to Counter-Earth.[101] After being tracked down and defeated by Luminous (a female who was created by the genetic material of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver), Wanda and Pietro were brought to the High Evolutionary. He revealed to them that Django and Marya Maximoff were their true parents—implying that the twins are actually the lost Ana and Mateo Maximoff—and that they were not mutants but had been experimented on by the High Evolutionary. After escaping from the High Evolutionary's experimentations, Pietro and Wanda located the Avengers Unity Division (who had travelled to Counter-Earth looking for the twins) and helped the inhabitants of Lowtown (a refuge for the High Evolutionary's rejects) from their creator's assault.[102] After the High Evolutionary is defeated and he escapes into a portal with Luminous, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver return to Earth with the Avengers Unity Division.[103]

Seeking to find her place after all the revelations of her true past, Wanda finds herself investigating a recent disruption in magic, as well as meeting the spirit of her biological mother, Natalya Maximoff (Django Maximoff's sister), who was apparently the Scarlet Witch before Wanda.[104]

When the second superhero Civil War began, Pietro came to ask Wanda for help, but Wanda refused, because she and Pietro disagreed on which side was right—Pietro not liking the idea of profiling people based on what they might do and Wanda feeling that thinking about the future would have prevented many of their more dangerous mistakes in the past. Past precedent made Wanda feel that introducing her powers to a conflict of this nature could make the situation more dangerous (plus she distrusted Tony Stark), and she resented Pietro for trying to tell her what to do as though she was a child, bluntly informing him that his refusal to learn from his mistakes marked him as a sociopath.[105]

During the "Last Days of Magic" arc, Scarlet Witch later helps Doctor Strange defeat the Empirikul, a science cult focused on destroying magic in every dimension.[106]

When Captain America, as a member of Hydra, made his move to take control over the United States as seen in the Secret Empire storyline, Wanda was seen among the members of Hydra's Avengers.[107] It was eventually revealed that Wanda joined other superheroes in Washington, D.C. in trying to stop Hydra, but they ultimately failed, and Wanda was subjected to a power that caused her to lose control of her powers and her mind and was brainwashed into serving Hydra.[108] During his "dinner" with members of the Underground, Captain America, and Hydra's Avengers, the Ultron/Hank Pym revealed that Scarlet Witch is possessed by Chthon.[109]Madame Hydra later mentioned to Captain America that Chthon's possession of Scarlet Witch has left her unhinged.[110] During the battle in Washington DC, Scarlet Witch is knocked out by Thor enabling Doctor Strange to make preparations to free her from Chthon's control.[111]

When the Scarlet Witch was first created by Lee and Kirby, her powers were not well defined. She had "hex powers", that could cause random unlikely events to take place. This gave creative freedom to the writers, as it actually meant that her powers could be used for any purpose required by the plot.[5] Despite the character's name, she had those powers as a mutant, and not because of actual witchcraft. Later writers gave her an increased control over her power, so that she could cause specific events and not just random ones. Englehart also made the character explore witchcraft under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, a trait that was kept by later writers. The effects of her powers are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents, such as causing the artefact the Evil Eye to work against the inter-dimensional warlord Dormammu,[112] forcing the robot Ultron to short circuit,[113] or a gas main underneath the Brotherhood of Mutants to explode.[114] Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension's mystical energy.[115]

Writer Kurt Busiek redefined Scarlet Witch's powers, and maintained that it was in fact an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. This was offered as an explanation for her various feats that seemed to go beyond probability alteration, as well as why her hexes almost always have an effect that is favorable to her goals.[68] During Busiek's run as well as the subsequent run by Geoff Johns, she was shown to be capable of large-scale spells given enough concentration and time to shape the chaos magic to a specific goal, including the resurrection of Wonder Man.[68]

Her powers were retconned in Avengers Disassembled, removing chaos magic and turning them into reality warping. In House of M, this new power was enough to change the whole universe.[116] Her powers were retconned back to their previous ones in The Children's crusade, and the previous events attributed to an outside force that had temporarily increased them.[86]

She has a degree of resistance to the Phoenix Force and can cause pain to its hosts, such as Cyclops when he tried to stop Hope from going with her.[117] This becomes less effective as the Phoenix Force portions are divided among those who have not yet been defeated.[volume & issue needed]A vs X #12 confirmed that her powers involve chaos magic, and stated that she has "Mutant Magic", and the "primal source of her chaos" magic is cosmic.[volume & issue needed]

In the new Scarlet Witch series (2016), it is confirmed that Wanda was born with the ability to utilize witchcraft and that this has been seen in other women within her family.[volume & issue needed] Wanda believes that The High Evolutionary genetically altered her, making her more receptive to magical energy.[volume & issue needed]

The Scarlet Witch is a female superhero created in the 1960s. As female readers preferred romance comics, the genre had a vast majority of male artists and readers at the time. The Scarlet Witch was thus created as the token female character for its team, with a passive power, and used mainly for interpersonal relation plots.[118]Avengers writer Roy Thomas even created a group of female superheroes, the Lady Liberators, in order to mock the ongoing Second-wave feminism.[119] Steve Englehart preferred strong women and sought to turn the Scarlet Witch into a stronger and more independent character, by increasing her powers and giving her a family. He lamented that those changes did not stick, and the kids were killed shortly after he ended writing the character.[120]

The character was ranked 97th in Wizard's "200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time" list,[121] 12th in IGN's list of "The Top 50 Avengers",[122] and 14th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.[123]

As part of both the Avengers and X-Men mythos, the Scarlet Witch has been included in several adaptions of both teams for television. Her first animated appearance was in the Captain America segment of The Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by Peg Dixon.[124] This series was based on the original artworks from the comic books, and had very limited animation.[125] She was used as a regular character in the 1994 Iron Man animated series, which adapted the Force Works group as a supporting cast for Iron Man. In this series, she did not use the common outfit, but the short-lived one from the contemporary comics.[126] She was voiced by Katherine Moffat in the first season,[127] and by Jennifer Darling in the second.[128] She was included in the first animated series focused on the Avengers, The Avengers: United They Stand, voiced by Stavroula Logothettis.[129] As with the other characters, the series largely ignored comic book canon, and was poorly received.[130] She also appeared in the episode "Hexed, Vexed, and Perplexed" of The Super Hero Squad Show, voiced by Tara Strong.[131]

Marvel licensed the filming rights of the X-Men and related concepts, such as mutants, to Fox. Fox created a film series based on the franchise. Years later, Marvel started their own film franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focused in the characters that they had not licensed to other studios, such as the Avengers. The main core of this franchise were the Avengers, both in standalone films and the successful The Avengers film. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were disputed by both studios. Fox would claim the rights over them because they were both mutants and children of Magneto, the villain of most of their films; and Marvel would claim those rights because the editorial history of the characters in comic books is more associated with the Avengers rather than the X-Men. The studios made an agreement, so that both of them would use the characters. It was made on the condition that the plots do not make reference to the other studio's properties: the Fox films can not mention them as members of the Avengers, and the Marvel films can not mention them as mutants or children of Magneto.[135]

The 2014 film X-Men: Days of Future Past, however, did not feature Scarlet Witch. There is a brief image of Quicksilver with a small girl in the film, and a deleted scene of Quicksilver complaining about his sister, but the director Bryan Singer denied that the girl was Scarlet Witch, saying that she was only Quicksilver's little sister, and that it was just a nod for comic book fans.[136] The sequel film X-Men: Apocalypse introduces another daughter of Magneto, Nina, which is also unrelated to the Scarlet Witch.[137]

Scarlet Witch is a playable character in the 2005 game X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse voiced by Jennifer Hale. She and Quicksilver appear as members of the Brotherhood of Mutants. When the players ask Scarlet Witch about her involvement with the Brotherhood of Mutants, Scarlet Witch states that she and Quicksilver are there to make sure their father doesn't go too far into his goals.

^Manning "2000s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 326: "After successfully disassembling the Avengers, the tormented Scarlet Witch still wasn't finished tampering with the lives of the men and women she'd fought beside for so many years."